Rams start season with youngest roster for third straight year

Posted by Josh Alper on August 31, 2014, 10:30 AM EDT

AP

All 32 teams are down to 53 players after Saturday’s cuts and the Rams have built the youngest roster in the league for the third straight year.

Jimmy Kempski of Philly.com broke down all of the league’s rosters and found that the Rams have an average age of 25.09, just ahead of the Jaguars, Chiefs and Cowboys. The Rams remain on top because they have been in a rebuilding mode that has included 28 draft choices, four 2014 picks didn’t make the team, in the three years since Les Snead became their general manager in 2012. The youth movement hasn’t led to much progress yet, but the Rams can still point to a bright future.

The Raiders haven’t had much success in the recent past either, but the makeup of their roster supports the notion that the time is now for coach Dennis Allen and General Manager Reggie McKenzie to start winning some games. They have the oldest roster in the league, an average age of 27, after acquiring veterans like Justin Tuck, Antonio Smith and Matt Schaub this offseason.

The Giants, Bears and Colts have the next oldest rosters. The names on those teams will change in the next few days, but there’s not likely to be a major shift in the average age of the 53 players that take the field when the season opens this week.

the last time the Raiders had a roster with older players was in 2002, and they went to the super bowl that year. That year they were even older at 27.5. I can only hope that this stat by mean something.